


Hell To Pay

by HopeCoppice



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale is an anxious little toaster, Crowley is Bad at Being a Demon (Good Omens), Crowley is Good With Kids (Good Omens), F/M, Female-Presenting Crowley (Good Omens), Nanny Crowley (Good Omens), Other, Seizing opportunities, Some implied off-screen violence on Hell's part, The Arrangement (Good Omens), some implied off-screen smuttiness too potentially
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-21 06:30:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20689049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeCoppice/pseuds/HopeCoppice
Summary: "You're my favourite, Nanny," Warlock mumbles, "you're not scared of me."Of course, all of humanity should tremble before Warlock... but, Crowley thinks, not yet. At eight years old, he's yet to show any sign of demonic powers, which means the plan is working. And yet, according to Warlock, Heaven's nearest earthly representative isn't happy about his side winning...





	Hell To Pay

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wren Truesong (waywren)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/waywren/gifts).

> I've been ill and completely unable to do anything productive for, like, a week, so please forgive the silence. I am - tentatively - back.
> 
> Gifting this to Wren Truesong, who absolutely made my day with 40+ comment notifications a few weeks back. I've been trying to find something to gift you since, but this was the first thing that presented itself. Let me know if you want it ungifted and I'll do that, no questions asked :)

Warlock is eight years old, and showing absolutely no signs of demonic powers. Nanny Ashtoreth smiles as she tucks him into bed, settles his current favourite cuddly toy beside him, and sings him his special bedtime song. The plan seems to be working, and perhaps there's hope for the world after all. At the end of her lullaby, she turns out the bedside lamp and makes to leave, but a small voice from the dark stops her in her tracks.

"You're my favourite, Nanny," Warlock mumbles, "you're not scared of me."

What a curious thing to say; Nanny Ashtoreth pauses, then leans down to stroke Warlock's hair, a soothing gesture they've often shared during his time in her care.

"All of humanity should tremble before you, Warlock… but perhaps not yet. Who's scared of you, lamb?" She's not sure what she's expecting; one of his little friends from school, perhaps, or even 'Sister Slug'.

"Brother Francis," Warlock admits instead, "he gets more and more scared of me every day."

Nanny Ashtoreth stiffens; has Aziraphale seen some dark power in the boy that she's overlooked? No - surely, of the two of them, she would know first if Warlock was coming into his powers. And if Aziraphale is upsetting her boy…

"There, there," she soothes, gently, "I'll talk to him. I'm sure it's some sort of misunderstanding; grownups can be very confusing."

"You'll talk to him?"

"Oh, yes. Don't you worry about it, dearie. Good night."

...There is going to be Hell to pay.

* * *

Aziraphale is sitting in the little cottage on the Dowlings’ property, the one they’ve been so kind as to give him as part of the terms of his employment, and staring into space. Warlock is eight years old, now, and he hasn’t shown the slightest hint of demonic power. If Aziraphale didn’t know better, he’d think he was a completely normal human boy.

The knock at the door startles him, and he quickly resumes his disguise before rushing to answer.

“Oh, it’s you.”

Nanny Ashtoreth raises one devastating eyebrow and sweeps past him into the living room. “Charming. Well, never mind - this isn’t a social call; I’ve come to talk to you about Warlock.”

“About Warlock? Is he… has he shown some sign of powers?”

“No, he’s shown signs of being a very unhappy little boy, because apparently _ somebody _ is scared of him.”

Aziraphale is busy restoring his usual appearance - he has several regrets about the look he’s chosen for Brother Francis, and it’s especially galling because Crowley _ warned _him he would - so he is, perhaps, paying less attention to the demon in his living room than he should.

“Oh, who?”

“He’s very upset that the gardener who loves all living things is bloody terrified of him, angel!” Despite the affectionate name, there’s pure fury in Ashtoreth’s voice, which is rapidly turning back into Crowley’s. “_Are _ you scared of him?”

“No! Well, er, I mean, he _ is _the Antichrist-”

“He’s showing no signs of power whatsoever. He is - despite my best efforts - _ not a bad kid_. You should be getting _ less _ frightened of him, not _ more _-”

“Well, that’s the problem!” Aziraphale snaps; he’s sick of being scolded like a child for something he can’t control. “He’s _ not _ showing the slightest sign of power, it’s as if you’re not trying at all!”

“You know I am,” Crowley argues, “I’m doing my part-”

“Not well enough.” And Crowley reacts as if he’s slapped her.

“Anyone would think you _ wanted _the world to end-”

“_Your side _ wants the world to end! Your side wants him evil, and powerful, and… torturing toads, or whatever, by this age!”

Crowley tucks her skirts under herself and drops primly into an armchair, looking more tired than Aziraphale has ever seen her.

“Since when do you give a single solitary _ salvation _about what my side wants?”

“I don’t,” Aziraphale insists, refusing to make eye contact. “I don’t care.”

“Then why does it seem like it’s the _ lack _of powers that’s scaring you?”

“You have to check in next week.”

“Yes, thank you, angel, it’s written in my diary-”

“Last time, they were… they weren’t pleased, were they?”

“A little disappointed, maybe-”

Crowley stops, mid-sentence, and really _ looks _ at him, and Aziraphale quickly finds that he can’t look at that side of the room at _ all_. She’s clever; he knows she’s just worked it out. When she speaks again, her voice is soft, almost trembling with surprise.

“Angel- are you scared for _ me?” _

“It’s- they- what if they _ punish _you, Crowley?” He presses his lips together, closes his mouth tight so he can’t let any incriminating noises slip. “What if they don’t send you back?”

Crowley is silent for a few seconds, and when Aziraphale dares to glance in her direction he’s surprised by her thoughtful expression. Then, suddenly, she lurches across the room and seizes his face between her hands, pressing her forehead against his. They share breaths, for a moment, her mouth so close to his that they’re almost touching, almost kissing-

“I’ll be fine,” she tells him firmly, “which is more than I can say for you if you upset my boy again.” She lingers a moment, after that ominous pronouncement, and Aziraphale could just shift forwards, just an inch, could make her understand why he’s so afraid to lose her - but then she’s gone, leaving the cottage with a purposeful stride.

Aziraphale touches his hand to his forehead and sighs. He really is doomed.

* * *

“I’m not scared of you, Warlock.”

Nanny Ashtoreth freezes, steps back into the shadow of the hedge. She'd promised to be back within the hour; it's only been half of that time, but she'd been thinking of the heat and how long it's been since Warlock has had a drink. Now, she performs a quick miracle to keep the ice in place and waits to see how Aziraphale plans to fix the boy.

"Then why do you always get all scared when you see me?"

Aziraphale hesitates, then lowers his voice even further.

“I’m scared that Nanny loves you, and she’ll never love me even nearly as much.”

“But Nanny really, really loves you.”

"I'm not even sure she likes me, Warlock, not really."

"That's silly. She doesn't love you like she loves me, though."

"Ah. Oh. Oh, well- never-"

"She loves you like my mom loves my dad."

The glass slips from Crowley's hand; it's barely shattered against the paving stones before she pulls it back into shape, but the damage is done; there's no way Aziraphale hasn't heard the noise. She's turning to flee as Warlock and Brother Francis appear around the corner of the hedge.

"I dropped- I'll bring you a fresh drink, Warlock-"

"Nanny Ash, you love Brother Francis, don't you? You have to tell him so he won't be scared!"

"Of course I do," Nanny Ashtoreth tells him, refusing to meet Aziraphale's eyes. "Now, I'm going to get you a drink."

Somehow, Brother Francis manages to hand Warlock back to her as if nothing has happened, and they don't speak for the rest of the day. But when Nanny Ashtoreth gets back to her bedroom that night, she finds a note folded carefully on her pillow.

_ Come and talk to me. _

It's not signed, but she'd recognise the angel's penmanship anywhere. It is time for a reckoning. 

She delays only long enough to check in on her sleeping charge - he didn't mean to embarrass her, after all - before gathering her courage and making her way down the garden. She knocks on the cottage door with a distinct feeling of dread.

"Look, you lied to the kid first," she begins, before Aziraphale can even get the door all the way open, and then strong fingers wrap around her wrist, pulling her forward, and the door closes behind her.

"I wasn't lying. Were you?"

"I- of course you were, that's not why you're scared-"

"I'm scared because I'm terrified to lose you, Crowley. I can't lose you. I love you, dear, and it's taken me so long to realise - but if you were just playing along for Warlock-"

"I wasn't," Crowley admits reluctantly, and now it's her turn to be scared. "I meant it-"

Aziraphale's lips cover hers, so gently she almost can't believe it's real. Surely she's dreaming- but he steps closer, the solid reassuring bulk of him comforting her with his presence. He is being gentle, so gentle with her, and Crowley fears she might fall apart under the weight of such tenderness. 

"We're supposed to be enemies," she whispers as they break the kiss, and Aziraphale smiles.

"We never have been. Why start now?"

"It can't last," she points out, and then buries her hands in his hair to kiss him again, more urgently this time.

"Then let this be Ashtoreth and Francis," Aziraphale murmurs when she gives him a chance to catch his breath, "let them have what we can't, just for now."

And Crowley knows that makes no sense, knows it will make no difference if they're caught, but she nods as if it's perfectly reasonable and kisses him again.

"What do you want them to have, angel?" And Aziraphale blushes, leading her further into his little cottage.

"Comfort," he mumbles. "Would you be more comfortable in the living room, or, ah, I have a rather nice bed I hardly use."

"I've never seen your bedroom," she tells him cautiously, and he seems relieved.

"I don't want to make any assumptions-"

"Let them have what we can't," Crowley tells him, putting a delicate weight on each word, and follows him to his bed.

* * *

Crowley misses their rendezvous the following week.

The plan was simple, a protocol they've followed many times before. Report to their respective head offices, meet on the usual bus afterwards, and then - Aziraphale had hoped - come back to the cottage for a proper debrief and, perhaps, a few unguarded hours together.

He rides up and down that bus route for hours, but has to give it up as a bad job. Before he returns to the Dowling estate, he phones Mrs Dowling, doing his very best impression of Nanny Ashtoreth's voice.

"I'm terribly sorry, dear, but I've been detained by a family issue. Hopefully it'll all be sorted soon, but I can't say when I'll be back-"

"Oh, of course, no - take as long as you need." Harriet is nothing but understanding; when Crowley gets back, at least there will be no trouble about extending her afternoon off.

And Crowley will be back, won't she? She has to come back.

Brother Francis is making rather a long night of it, puttering around with a pair of hedge clippers by the front gates, when Nanny Ashtoreth limps in shortly after midnight.

"Nanny Asht- oh, _ Crowley_-"

"Hush, it's nothing. I can't go to the house, can-?"

"My cottage, of course. Yes."

He knows better than to try to offer any assistance as she stumbles - more Crowley than Ashtoreth, and somehow less steady than either - towards his little home, but the moment she's over the threshold he has to _ touch. _ He's so glad to feel her, corporeal and cool and _ real, _that he almost doesn't notice the way she flinches, the tension that sparks in her limbs as his fingers brush her wrists.

"Crowley?"

"Don't- just don't. No questions. How was Heaven?" But before he can reply, her mouth settles over his, sealing in the words he's searching for, and before he knows it they're blundering towards the bedroom, shedding clothes on the way.

"Crowley- I thought- I-"

"I'm here," she tells him, and they topple onto the mattress.

Nanny Ashtoreth wears a great many layers, and it isn't until Aziraphale relieves her of her blouse that they both freeze.

"Crowley," Aziraphale gasps, amorous intentions forgotten as he stares at the newly revealed bruises that cover every inch of the demon's body. "Crowley, what-?"

"It's nothing," she insists, "I forgot, sorry, I'll- they'll heal-"

"Let me." But he hesitates, and so does she. "Crowley, what happened?"

"Hell was hoping for more tangible results," she admits, "it's nothing, really. Could have been-" She cuts herself off, but Aziraphale knows.

"Worse." He reaches out, tentative, relieved beyond all reason when she lets him run gentle fingers down her arm, bruises disappearing in their wake. "It could have been _ worse_."

"Well, it could. But look, no harm done."

"No harm-?"

"No lasting harm," Crowley amends, "I'm fine, angel." She's free of visible bruises now, thanks to Aziraphale’s miracles, and he reaches unthinkingly for the full slip she’s still wearing. Crowley catches his hand, tries to guide it beneath the hem instead, but he draws his hand back altogether; he won’t be distracted so easily.

“Crowley, I’m not touching you until I’m sure you’re not hurt.”

“I’m- they’re just _ bruises_, they didn’t even get the whip out, it’s fine-”

“Then let me heal them.”

“And then- then you won’t think I’m disgusting? Once you’ve seen-?”

“Why would I?” It’s a rhetorical question, but Crowley gives her answer some thought.

“I- these bruises- they’re because I’m not good enough. At my job, I mean. And I’m not _ good _the other way, either, so- why would you want me?”

It’s too much; Aziraphale pulls the slip over her head and sets to work healing the bruises on her torso with gentle kisses. In between pressing his lips to the marks, he lifts his head to speak.

“These are because Hell doesn’t appreciate you. But _ I _do. And this is exactly what I’ve been afraid of, all this time. I thought- Crowley, I thought you weren’t coming back to me.”

“I wouldn’t leave without-”

“I thought they wouldn’t let you. They could punish you, they could _ destroy _ you, Crowley- don’t you see that’s what I’m scared of?”

“I’m here-”

“And next time, they’ll expect to hear what a little devil Warlock is. We have to work harder on this balance, because right now it’s tipping in my favour and it _ shouldn’t_-” He cuts himself off, brushing his lips over bruise after bruise, and Crowley all but melts beneath him.

“We’ll worry about that next time. Angel- angel, I thought I might never see you again.”

All at once, he realises that her behaviour since her return - so keen to reach his bed, so desperate to touch and be touched - hasn’t been for his benefit, nor to distract him. Crowley, too, is frightened; Crowley, too, craves reassurance. The thought scares him more than all the rest of it put together - his Crowley is never frightened of Hell, not like Aziraphale is of Heaven - and all he can do is succumb to their shared desire. He heals the last of the bruises with a whisper of breath across her skin, and then draws her into his arms. He wants nothing more than to feel her body moving against his, to know that she is here, and safe, and content.

* * *

Nanny Ashtoreth has been tidying Warlock’s room while he’s in the garden with Aziraphale - it may be the boy’s own job but she doesn’t mind helping every so often to keep the peace. Besides, Aziraphale rarely asks for time alone with the Antichrist, these days, and it will do the boy good to be exposed to Heavenly influences. Regardless of how Crowley’s superiors feel about it, _ Crowley _ is really hoping that Warlock will grow up more good than evil. She doesn’t, after all, want the world to end, just when it’s become so delightfully _ soft_.

She reaches the kitchen and stares in horror at the mess that’s been made in the garden. Warlock appears to have dug several trenches in the formerly-perfect lawn, traipsed mud through the kitchen, and stolen the cookie jar, which is now being rapidly emptied into his own face in the middle of all the chaos in the garden.

“That’s it, Warlock, and you don’t have to share them, either,” Brother Francis tells him with a conspiratorial chuckle, “you eat as many as you want.”

They’re still giggling together when Nanny Ashtoreth stalks out onto the ruined grass, wearing a scowl that could curdle the sun.

“Warlock Dowling! What is the meaning of this?”

“Brother Francis said-”

“Yes, very good, rat me out,” Brother Francis smiles, “save yourself.” He doesn’t seem to be joking.

“Brother Francis said I could, Nanny Ash,” Warlock repeats doubtfully, though all trace of laughter is gone from his expression.

“Well, then. I suppose I can’t blame you for following orders. But in future, don’t listen to him. _ Listen to me. _Now go inside and wash those hands, young man - and shoes off before you go in the house!”

Brother Francis is unrepentant as Nanny Ashtoreth rounds on him.

“What on earth are you playing at, Francis?”

“You have to check in again soon, right?”

“What does that have to do with-?” _ Oh. _ She thinks she sees how it _ might _ have something to do with it. “Is this- are you trying to be a Hellish influence on my behalf?”

“All part of the Arrangement, surely.” Brother Francis smiles serenely, and Crowley has to fight the urge to abandon all semblance of character and strangle the idiot. Stolen cookies? Mud in the house? A little digging? This won’t help her at all, and it risks pushing the boy into genuinely bad behaviour. Unless…

“Stealing, gluttony, selfishness,” she mutters under her breath, “thoughtlessness-”

“Wanton destruction,” Aziraphale adds, helpfully, indicating the ruined lawn, “and disobedience, because it actually took quite a long time to convince him to do it - although I don’t suppose you can really use that one.”

“Thank you,” she tells him begrudgingly, “this will help.”

“Don’t mention it. I mean - really, don’t. I don’t suppose my side would like it.”

“_I _like it. But just this once,” she tells him sternly, “no more of this.”

“If you insist, my dear. If you insist.”

She turns to walk away, to go back to the house and make sure Warlock has burned off his destructive tendencies - but then she pauses.

“Brother Francis?”

“Nanny Ashtoreth,” the angel responds pleasantly.

“Might I call at your cottage this evening?”

“I do wish you would,” Brother Francis tells her. 

Nanny Ashtoreth smiles and returns to the house, already looking forward to the end of the day. There’s nothing to be afraid of, now.


End file.
